Riddhi Kothari, DO

• University of Virginia, BS
• Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, DO
• University of Maryland/Sheppard Pratt, Residency

Dr. Riddhi Kothari is a board-certified general psychiatrist. She completed her undergraduate education at the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Psychology. She completed her medical school education at Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic medicine in 2013. She completed her residency training in adult psychiatry at University of Maryland/Sheppard Pratt Psychiatry residency program in Baltimore, Maryland. During residency, she served as Chief Resident for Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) and Consult-Liaison Services, and was a recipient of Excellence in Community Psychiatry award.

After residency, she moved to Seattle, Washington where she worked as an attending psychiatrist in the Psychiatric Emergency Services at Harbor Medical Center in Seattle, where she gained an abundance of experience evaluating and treating individuals in acute psychiatric crisis. She relocated to Northern Virginia in 2020, where she joined Inova Health system as Medical Director for Behavioral Health Emergency Services and Inova Psychiatric Assessment Center (IPAC). In this dual role, she had an opportunity to develop her leadership skills and provide supervision to clinicians performing psychiatric evaluations in Inova’s various emergency rooms. She also provided medication management consultations to ER physicians to assist them with managing patients with mental illness. She also worked at IPAC, a unique walk-in clinic, where she provided psychiatric evaluations for medication management for various psychiatric illnesses ranging from depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Dr. Kothari’s treatment approach begins with establishing a good therapeutic rapport with her patients and listening to her patients so that they feel heard. Dr. Kothari likes to spend time providing psychoeducation on medications when discussing treatment plan. Dr. Kothari’s practice focuses on medication management primarily, but may incorporate supportive psychotherapy during medication visits. Dr. Kothari may recommend additional psychotherapy if she feels a patient may benefit from this.